Monument to Kazimierz Kwiatkowski, Polish architect who saved Hoi An from destruction and helped restore the town after the war, Hoi An, Vietnam, Asia
Who was Kazimierz Kwiatkowski? Kazimierz Kwiatkowski was born in a small village in eastern Poland called Pachole. He moved to Krakow as a young man to study Architecture. His big interest was conservation. And when UNESCO started to restore historical places in Vietnam, after the war, he was named head of a joint Polish/Vietnamese mission that had the job of restoring monuments in central Vietnam. He fell in love with the country and the Vietnamese people, who called him Kazik, cause they could not pronounce his very long Polish name. He took deep personal interest to the local people he worked with. And invited several of them to his native Poland, so that they could see where he came from. That made him a very respected person in Vietnam. He lived in Vietnam for 17 years, until he passed away of a sudden heart attack in An is probably the prettiest small town in all Vietnam today. And tourists flock to this little charming town, filled with small houses in traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese style. But the town almost got bulldozed in the 1980’s. Hoi An was, like most other towns in Vietnam, hard hit by the war. And the local government wanted to replace the old houses with new apartment blocks. But Kazimierz Kwiatkowski wanted to restore the town. and he did endless lobbying and negotiating with the local government, who in the end agreed to let UNESCO restore the old town center of Hoi An. These days, How An is one of the most prosperous towns in Vietnam, thanks to tourism. So on the 20th anniversary of his death, the Vietnamese decided to erect a monument in the honor of the guy who made it possible for the locals today to have a living standard that is well above the average person in Vietnam. Kazimierz Kwiatkowski Saw the massive tourism potential in Vietnam himself and said to the locals that one day Hoi An would be a goose laying golden eggs for the residents.
Size: 4480px × 6720px
Location: Hoi An, Vietnam, Asia
Photo credit: © John Keates / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: architect, asia, heritage, historic, hoi, kazimierz, kwiatkowski, monument, nam, phu, polish, province, quang, quarter, quảng, restore, site, street, thran, town, unesco, vietnam, vietnamese, world
